No Second Chances
by peroxidepest17
Summary: Opportunity only knocks once.


**Title:** No Second Chances  
**Universe: **Bleach  
**Theme/Topic:** At Night  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Pairing/Character/s: **IbaxYumi, Shuuhei (with some Shuuhei+Yumichika thrown in)  
**Word Count:** 2,800  
**Warning/s: ** Spoilers for the SS arc.  
**Summary: **Opportunity only knocks once.  
**Dedication:** electify's LATE LIKE CRAZY birthday fic!  
**A/N:** Uuuum, I don't know why it was this idea that hit me when I saw the prompt, to be honest. It only works the whole "night" theme in very loosely. Hopefully that is okay?  
**Disclaimer: **Not mine- I'm not that creative.  
**Distribution: **Just lemme know.

* * *

Hisagi Shuuhei never imagined that six little words had the potential to change your life.

One careless little sentence, said at the spur of the moment, said in anger and embarrassment and with no forethought as to what it might bring in the future.

A few weeks ago, Ayasegawa Yumichika had told him, "I like you!"

And blushing in irritation, he'd swiftly turned his back on the other man. "I have no interest in you."

Left it at that.

Because he'd been sick of Ayasegawa's ardent pursuit, had been sick of smelling wisteria around every corner and of being graced with dazzling smiles he had no interest in, of hearing an overly familiar "Shuu!" in the place of the proper "Hisagi-fukutaichou" he deserved when he was in front of his men. He didn't want to be the object of that fascination anymore, to be forced into remembering how those eyes had captivated him as tendrils of reiatsu rendered him helpless, or how that gentle laughter had made him shiver as he'd been so easily defeated.

He didn't want Yumichika chasing after him any more.

He felt that there was nothing about himself that warranted the fifth seat's undivided interest, and boggled—nay extremely irritated—over the whole fiasco, had demanded that the eleventh divisioner leave him be, citing that he would never encourage or support any sort of liaison between the two of them for as long as they both should live. On top of that, he had no reason to believe he had acted in such a way that would give Yumichika cause to believe otherwise.

So it was at the height of annoyance that he'd declared: "I have no interest in you," and turned away from perhaps not Ayasegawa himself, but from what the other shinigami offered—forgiveness, solace, comfort, love. "I will _never_ have any interest in you."

Really, all he'd wanted was to be left alone.

Iba confronted him after that day, after his careless, thoughtless words, and even now, Shuuhei still remembered how the former eleventh division shinigami had been so full of bluster and indignation on his former teammate's behalf.

"Oi," Tetsuzaemon began, "that wasn't fair, Shuuhei."

"What wasn't fair? He's the one who won't get the hint!"

"Just 'cuz you're in a bad place right now don't mean it's okay to just hurt somebody like that, asshole. How's that help anything?"

Shuuhei remembered sighing at that, not knowing what to do or what Yumichika wanted from him. "It was the truth," he stated after a while, and took a shuddering breath before turning to Iba. "I don't want anything to do with that man."

"Fair enough," Tetsuzaemon responded, sensibly. "Still ain't right to be a dick about it."

Shuuhei had been too busy hating himself to see how good manners played into the situation, how his being nice to someone who was clearly bothering him would appease his own self-loathing even the tiniest. And besides, he'd tried various other forms of rejection and had met with little success under Yumichika's persistence, and thus felt that he could hardly be blamed for having lost it after the umpteenth time.

In the grander scheme of things, thinking about Ayasegawa Yumichika's hurt feelings hardly seemed like a drop in the bucket of Shuuhei's problems.

Really, what did Iba expect of him?

Not much apparently, because Tetsuzaemon didn't wait for an apology from his friend, but having said his peace, simply turned around and walked out of the room, muttering a quiet, "I guess I'd better be the one to talk to him," to himself before finally giving Hisagi the only thing he'd been wanting since his captain's betrayal—solitude.

And with that, Iba gave Hisagi the out he'd been looking for ever since Yumichika had first started hounding him. The ninth division vice-captain gladly took it of course, using it as an excuse to throw all things related to Ayasegawa onto the other vice-captain's shoulders so that he could continue to wallow in his own misery just as he very well desired.

From that day on, Tetsuzaemon sat on the front steps leading into the ninth division headquarters and met Ayasegawa there when he came in the evenings after work, cutting the fifth chair off from storming inside to see Shuuhei.

Shuuhei could hear them from his open window around the corner—Yumichika never felt the need to censure his volume after all—and Hisagi heard every word of how the fifth seat planned to once more, advertise all of his good qualities to Shuuhei in order to try and pull the vice-captain out of his self-imprisonment for some much needed fun.

"He just ain't in the mood, Yumi," Iba said, and Yumichika pouted, seeming genuinely hurt by the refusal.

"Clearly he's as blind as his captain was."

Tetsuzaemon quirked a half-smile at that. "Yeah. Guess so."

And so the two spent the rest of the evening out in front of the ninth division headquarters' front steps, Iba listening attentively while Yumichika frowned and frumped and generally used that venomous little tongue of his to convince himself Hisagi wasn't worth the effort anyway, that he'd been wrong when he saw someone who needed him when he'd looked into the ninth division vice-captain's troubled eyes.

"There are men who would give an eye for five minutes alone with me, you know," the fifth chair sniffed at Tetsuzaemon that night, nose in the air and snooty as Iba had ever seen the man in all his years knowing him.

"Yeah," Iba agreed with that same lopsided smile, and humored Ayasegawa with a patience Shuuhei never would have accredited to his larger friend had he not seen and heard it right then and there.

"Let's go get dinner," Yumichika suggested after a while, and let Iba escort him out of the front gates.

The next evening was a repeat cycle of the night before, and Shuuhei listened with half an ear from his office as Iba once again, met Yumichika at the stairs and patiently convinced the fifth seat not to enter tonight, because Shuuhei still wasn't in the mood.

Hisagi was glad for his friend at those times, and let himself sit alone in his office, pondering loss and grief and the chill of being abandoned just as he'd decided he must. The proper penance for a stunning failure.

In the meantime, from the outside, he heard the noises of two people in honest conversation with one another, absently listened to the music of Yumichika's prissy little scoffs answered by the low bass of Iba's earnest, genuine laughter. They talked about nothing and everything on those nights, and Shuuhei listened despite himself, wondering what on earth Ayasegawa of all people, had to say that was worth listening to so attentively.

Every night for a week the two of them sat out on the steps like that, idly spending the time talking and laughing, maybe even flirting a little with one another, while Shuuhei did his best not to pay them too much attention so that he might meditate in his repentant solitude.

On the eighth night, Yumichika approached the steps just like always, and like always, Iba was there to meet him.

"He's not in the mood tonight," Iba began by rote, and was cut off with a little huff and a dismissive wave of the fifth chair's delicate hand.

"I don't want to see him," Yumichika declared without hesitation.

Iba blinked. "Then why…"

"I came to see you, of course!" Yumichika said, as if it should be obvious by now. "Let's go for a walk," he suggested then, before Iba could even think about being embarrassed. The fifth chair beamed and grabbed Tetsuzaemon's hands in both of his then, pulling him up from his sitting position on the steps without giving him a chance to answer. "The moon is lovely tonight."

"Well, sure, I guess it is pretty nice," Iba agreed, and from his office window, Shuuhei could see them walking out of the ninth division gates together, illuminated by starlight.

Then, it was quiet. Finally quiet, just as he'd wanted.

He was alone.

And suddenly, suddenly Shuuhei felt as if he'd been left behind again, somehow.

Inexplicably, unexpectedly, Hisagi felt even more empty now than he had when Tousen had left.

The peace and quiet he'd longed for, that he'd wished to meditate in, was roaring through him like a feral beast now, and he found himself—inexplicably, unexpectedly—wondering what those two were talking about as they took their moonlight stroll, realizing to himself perhaps too late, that in reality, their voices, their silly little conversations about everything and nothing from his office window, had been the only things holding him together after all this time.

He wondered, was Yumichika still cursing him to the ends of the earth as he had every time he'd unsuccessfully tried to gain audience with Hisagi? Or had he given up, moved on, and forgotten about his fruitless pursuit of Shuuhei? He didn't seem the type to linger, to trap himself in thoughts of the past.

And beyond that, he found himself wondering other inane little things as well—if Ayasegawa still tilted his head demurely at Iba when he talked to the other man—just as he'd done when he'd tried to flirt with Shuuhei— and could he still smile so brightly at someone else now, hair smelling of wisteria and lashes fluttering? Did he have an embarrassing pet name for Iba yet, Shuuhei wondered, and how long ago had those visits on the ninth division steps ceased being about seeing Hisagi and started being all about the other vice-captain who had sat there every day in his stead?

Left alone in the silence he'd so desired—the loathing and self-pity and disbelieving anger—Shuuhei only felt empty. None of the realization he'd longed for came to him as he sat alone, none of the discovery or forgiveness. He'd waited for epiphany and found loneliness instead.

He himself thinking about what might have been if he'd skipped ahead and tried to pass over all this turmoil in the first place. What if he had jumped straight into the forgiveness, solace, comfort, and love offered to him?

At the time, it seemed as if he would be taking the easy way out, failing to meditate on his failings before moving on. Now, it seemed like that had been the path to take all along, the straight-line route out of these murky woods. He'd wasted so much time and now, he felt as if nothing had come of it.

He wondered why that was.

And even more, he wondered, just a little, if Yumichika might still smile for him tomorrow, if only Shuuhei gave him reason to.

But when tomorrow came Ayasegawa didn't, and Iba failed to take his position at the steps for the first time in a long time.

All Shuuhei had was silence.

A day, two days, three, five, and a week gone, and Hisagi Shuuhei waited for their return every night alone in his office, wondering if there were such things as second chances in this life.

When they returned they came together some weeks later—walking hand-in-hand— and Iba left Yumichika at the top of the steps with a painfully tender look in his eye, a whispered smile and the promise of a quick return. Shuuhei moved away from his window quickly and took his seat as his desk when he heard Iba walk through the front doors, the ninth division vice-captain staring down at the paperwork he hadn't touched all afternoon and hoping it looked like he was busy anyway.

Iba knocked on his door a few moments later.

"Come in."

"Hey, you busy?"

"Yes, but come in."

The seventh division vice-captain looked a little embarrassed as he stepped inside the office, but earnest as well, always earnest. "Well uh, I don't want to bother you or nothing, but can I talk to you about something real quick?"

"Of course," Shuuhei said, and his hand tightened unconsciously in his lap.

"Well… you see," Iba began, and fidgeted a bit nervously, "I mean, that is to say, I know you didn't ever have any interest in the first place, and it's probably stupid of me to even be uh, talkin' to you 'bout this, but seein' as to how I guess… you were um, you were _first_…" he trailed off then, and looked at the floor, "I just wanted to clear it with you anyway, on account of us bein' best friends. I uh… I don't want you to be uncomfortable or nothin'."

Shuuhei stared. "What are you getting at?" he asked with surprising calm, even though he already knew very well what was coming.

One man's loss was another man's gain, after all.

Iba's cheeks turned bright pink then, and he rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "Well you see, me'n Yumi… we ah… he and I…" he trailed off again, made a vague back and forth gesture with his other hand. "I mean, you know?"

"I…see."

The other vice-captain looked immensely relieved that Shuuhei understood. "Then… you don't mind?"

Shuuhei felt himself flushing slightly at being so openly associated with such an issue, and looked back down at his paperwork. "Of course not." Three more words that would invariably change his life forever, but what else could he say?

Iba grinned when he heard them, somehow even more relieved now than he'd been just a moment before. "Great. I mean… yeah. Great." Pause, swallow. "Hey…. Yumi'n I are just about to get some dinner. You uh, you wanna come with us?"

"I'm very busy," Shuuhei responded, and gestured to his paperwork.

"Aw c'mon," Iba urged. "Can't be that important, right? And besides, you can't stay cooped up in here all day and expect that I'll let you stay here all night too."

Shuuhei hesitated. "I don't think…"

"It's a lovely evening," a new voice suddenly declared, and both vice-captains turned to see Yumichika there, lingering idyllically in Hisagi's windowpane.

Iba blinked. "Hey," he said, surprised to find that the outside and the inside were so close together.

Yumichika sparkled at him. "Hey."

Shuuhei wondered if that smile had ever been as bright, when it had been for him.

"Shall we go, Tetsu-kun?" Ayasegawa suggested after a moment, eyes still fixated on Tetsuzaemon's.

Iba started a bit at the words, like he was coming out of some sort of hypnosis, and nodded. "Yeah. I mean…" he turned back to Shuuhei then, "you comin' or what?"

Shuuhei swallowed, and now when looked around—when he looked at Iba and Yumi— he felt the chill of silence starting to wash away from his office walls for the first time in weeks. It was as if he'd come to a different place entirely tonight, that his world had been transformed just from the presence of the other two shinigami lingering there alongside him, waiting patiently for his response.

It was too late, perhaps, to take what Ayasegawa had offered to him a month ago, but this was still something that wasn't the nothing he'd been faced after their departure from the steps outside his window.

It wasn't alone.

Slowly, he stood. It was difficult, especially with Yumichika smiling at Tetsuzaemon in the exact same way he'd smiled at Shuuhei some weeks before, but difficult was better than empty, and with a quiet breath, the ninth division vice-captain looked up to meet his friend's eyes.

"You're buying," he said, and put his brush down with a great sense of finality.

Iba immediately broke out into a grin. "You better eat cheap then, asshole."

"Delightful," Yumichika declared, and gave a little toss of his hair that Shuuhei imagined smelling of wisteria. The fifth seat offered to buy the drinks that night.

Thus, they left, Shuuhei in tow for the first time.

And as they walked towards their destination together by moonlight—Yumichika and Tetsuzaemon arm-in-arm—this time, Hisagi Shuuhei slowly, tentatively, hopefully, allowed himself to take from his two companions, what it was they were offering.

Forgiveness, solace, comfort, love.

Not the same as the ones Yumichika had offered him those many weeks ago perhaps, because those had long been altered by the time between then and now, the people they'd been last week and the people they were tonight.

For the two of them, it could never be those same things ever again.

Shuuhei knew now, that there were no second chances in this life.

But he'd also learned that maybe, if you were lucky and you had friends who were persistent; there would always be such things as new opportunities as well.

You just had to be sure to take them when they came.

**END**


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